Aircraft, in particular larger passenger aircraft, need to be de-iced during certain flight phases and on the ground for a number of reasons. The freezing or freeze-related seizing of flaps and other movable parts, as well as the formation of ice on the wing profile, significantly deteriorates the aerodynamic properties and increases the weight of the respective aircraft such that the in-flight formation of ice needs to be prevented and ice that has already formed on an aircraft situated on the ground needs to be removed. These two processes are usually referred to as “de-icing” (ice removal) and “anti-icing” (prevention of ice formation). Although the following description concerns, in particular, anti-icing, the invention is by no means restricted to anti-icing.
Different variations of anti-icing systems have prevailed in the prior art. For example, bleed air withdrawn from the engines is routed into the interior of leading wing edges via a perforated pipeline in order to heat the leading wing edge and prevent freezing of condensation water droplets. Other systems heat the leading wing edges or other critical areas by means of electrically operated heaters. In this case, temperature limits need to be observed in order to protect the materials used. This is particularly critical during ground use because the electrically heated surfaces are not simultaneously cooled by the relative wind. One particular disadvantage of previously known de-icing methods is the fact that the engines need to make available bleed air and/or an electric current for the de-icing system. The withdrawal of bleed air lowers the efficiency of the aircraft because additional air is taken in from the surroundings and compressed such that the fuel consumption increases. The withdrawal of a relatively large quantity of electrical energy from the generators of the engines increases their shaft output to be generated such that the fuel consumption is also increased in this case.